Trump Endorses Kobach For Kansas Governor Over Republican Incumbent

One of the nation's most vocal promoters of unsubstantiated voter fraud claims hopes to eliminate his own party's sitting governor in Tuesday's primary.

Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach de-facto led
President Donald Trump's voter fraud commission. He's a provocative, self-styled champion of election integrity — dogged by allegations of links to white nationalists and opposed by civil rights groups who see him as pursuing thinly veiled voter suppression.

The day before the primary, President Trump tweeted an endorsement for Kobach, "he will be a GREAT Governor and has my full & total Endorsement! Strong on Crime, Border & Military."

Kris Kobach, a strong and early supporter of mine, is running for Governor of the Great State of Kansas. He is a fantastic guy who loves his State and our Country - he will be a GREAT Governor and has my full & total Endorsement! Strong on Crime, Border & Military. VOTE TUESDAY!

Trump made no reference to the voter fraud commission, which brought Kobach and the president together, but voter registration is still Kobach's rallying cry. "Every time a non-citizen votes, it effectively cancels out the vote of a U.S. citizen," he said in a recent interview. "That's a problem."

The same court case saw Kobach
held in contempt for violating an injunction meant to safeguard voting rights. He was charged
lawyer fees for that, and
fined for misleading a judge.

All of this happened even as Kobach campaigned to unseat Gov. Jeff Colyer. But it's unclear whether his courtroom woes will turn voters against him. Colyer is leveraging Kobach's most embarrassing moments in hopes that it will.

"There is only one candidate on this stage," Colyer said at a recent debate, "who has been fined by a federal judge for lying to a federal court."

Colyer is a fellow conservative who inherited the governorship earlier this year when his deeply unpopular predecessor
left for a U.S. State Department job. But he isn't a shoo-in. Seven candidates are vying for the GOP nomination. The winning nominee doesn't need a majority — just the highest percentage of votes.

At Washburn University in Topeka, Kan., political scientist Bob Beatty says that means Kobach's base could be his ticket to defeating Colyer.

"His strategy, and it may be a very good one, is, 'I don't need to change anybody's mind,' " Beatty says. " 'I just need to get my people out.' "

Kobach is selling himself as the true conservative — someone who won't compromise with the Republican party's moderate branch, let alone Democrats.

"If you're talking about a wishy-washy politician who just says whatever he thinks you want to hear," Kobach says, "you don't know if that guy's going to deliver."

Kobach's war against voter fraud bonded him with the president from the start.
He has confirmed Trump considered him to lead the Department of Homeland Security before tapping him for the voter fraud commission. More recently, the president's son, Donald Trump Jr., has been helping Kobach raise money for his campaign.

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Celia comes to the Kansas News Service after five years at the Topeka Capital-Journal . She brings in-depth experience covering schools and education policy in Kansas as well as news at the Statehouse. In the last year she has been diving into data reporting. At the Kansas News Service she will also be producing more radio, a medium she’s been yearning to return to since graduating from Columbia University with a master’s in journalism.